GRAM Arts Symposium: Blind spots in "the Michigan perspective"

This past weekend, the Grand Rapids Art Museum hosted the Film Art & Literature Symposium, promising a conversation about “The Michigan Perspective.” As both a recent Michigan transplant and an artist interested in how geography affects community engagement, I hoped that the conference might offer insight for navigating my new cultural terrain.

This need to define place strikes me as a very American urge. The ink is barely dry in our history books, so Americans perhaps more than others have more freedom in constructing and projecting an image of their given places. It was America, after all, who gave the world its first national park (so our trees are the ones that come with plaques and brochures).

Defining a local perspective is a tall order, if not impossible today as many of us have a fractured, even dislocated sense of place.

During the conference, I was on the look-out for contemporary and place-specific elements that might distinguish our Michigan creative culture from others. I came away with some broad characteristics that Michigan culture-makers share, but I was more struck by what the conference seemed to uncover as lacking in our creative community The below three areas call for our attention:

1. Contextualization: Acknowledging commonalities is not enough. Artists must clearly articulate a context for their own work and make sense of what others around them are doing.

Keynote speaker and President of Peopledesign Kevin Budelmann introduced the conference with a mandate to both arts institutions and artists. Arts institutions, he suggested, should see themselves as educators. Referencing the Occupy Wall Street folks, Budelmann urged the creatives in the 99% to communicate their value and their message clearly, especially when asking for money. As president of a design consultancy firm, Budelmann offered a unique, somewhat outsider’s perspective on contextualization. While artists, feeling like cattle, may view “branding,” as something inflicted upon them, Budelmann implied that artists ought to be collectively concerned whether they are noticeable and whether or not people care what we’re up to. He concluded his lecture by posing the question, Will we be the sum of our actions, or will we collaboratively define ourselves? I can safely assume that a designer’s answer may hinge on intentional communication, but artists may beg to differ.

In the Artist’s round table panel, two of the four artists could not speak to how their work fit into a local, or even larger, context. Sculptor Jason Quigno admitted that he locked himself in his studio and was unaware of art movements. Artist, designer and community activist Georgia Taylor was stumped when asked to describe her work. She mused broadly, “It’s about humanity? The self?” While Taylor’s Studio 477 undoubtedly offers valuable resources by providing professional support for underrepresented young artists, context seems to play little part in her own work. Neverthless, the act of bringing artists together at Studio 477, this symposium, and other nonprofit initiatives like Sunday Soup and ArtPeers is crucial to hammering out a collective identity.

2. Value: Advocating the value of one’s work within a local context is problematic but essential.

As conference speakers and participants alike noted, we Michiganders view ourselves provincially. Budelmann gave the illustration that someone from Wyoming, Michigan might not claim Grand Rapids and furthermore, proclaiming Wyoming as home to another Michigander would never conjure up images of the Tetons. We readily acknowledge that we belong within small boundaries, yet most ambitious artists would cringe at the label of “local artist.” Local has problematic connotations. To “know your place” is to know your limits, where you don’t belong. Seeing oneself as a local service provider (akin to a plumber or a dentist) might seem an act of de-valuing one’s work. Artists have to allow themselves to be multi-centered, grounding themselves in the local community while stretching beyond its perimeters, though not always simultaneously.

While moderating the Artist’s round table panel, Tommy Allen likened artists to bomb detonators. They go into culturally desolate spaces, clear the detritus, and set up shop. But as we’ve seen happen in SoHo, the studio spaces and bohemian coffee shops soon become luxury lofts and martini bars unaffordable to artists. So while artists add value, they rarely reap the benefits—monetarily, at least. Jennifer Guerra of Michigan Radio highlighted several projects in Flint and Detroit that re-imagine blight as exhibition spaces and community centers. While the transformative value of artists may be more apparent in communities like Flint and Detroit who desperately need both soul and face-lift, artists in cities like Grand Rapids must advocate for themselves and their value.

Some practical suggestions offered were strategic and selective agreement to donations, to create bodies of work wherein lies the commodity or creating unique exhibition opportunities. We could all work together to expand this list.

3. Criticism: We cannot demand that art have a context and value without prioritizing critical discourse.

Curiously lacking from this symposium were the voices of critics and curators. With the slow death of paper media, the paid profession of critic and/or arts writer has become what Hrag Vartanian calls “a career path for the masochistic.”

So what is the solution to infusing more critical discourse, if critics and curators are not present? During his ArtPrize lecture, Sculpture Magazine editor Glenn Harper prescribed what he saw as the only viable solution to this post-art critic, post-movement era: Artists themselves must create their own philosophy for why their work exists. They must be maker and critic. Artists are not always the best at defining their work, but they can collectively make sense what’s going on in their midst. Taking a look at- heck, even collaborating with- art communities that lie beyond our own metropolis might solidify our unique contributions while being stretched by others.

It’s a heavy burden to be an artist engaged in local community—to create one’s own context, value and criticism within the community where you buy your groceries. But Michigan, like much of America, continues to beg for cultural definition. So long as we continue to ask new acquaintances “where are you from,” we can’t deny the pull of geographical place that operates in each of us. The burden of making sense of our locale in our individual creative efforts and within our local communities is an innate and worthwhile effort.